In the aftermath of the shocking murder of prominent American conservative influencer Charlie Kirk, who was only 31, there has been a manic rush to generate a profile of the suspect, 22-year-old Tyler Robinson. 

Media reports highlight that Robinson maintained a near-perfect grade point average and a string of academic accomplishments: his father is a retired Sheriff’s Deputy in the State of Utah, his family is from a Mormon background. Like many millions of teenagers and young adults in America, Robinson was active online and on social media platforms – some of which have been known to be associated with radicalisation pathways.

Millions of teenagers and young adults in the US now spend substantial parts of their lives on online forums, in chatrooms, and posting anonymously on image boards. Among the most notorious of these is 4chan, which hosts themed boards allowing free posting of images, memes, and textual content.

One of its most infamous boards is /pol/ (short for ‘politically incorrect’). /pol/ functions as a fast-updating imageboard where users share memes, GIFs, images, and text, often blending irony, sarcasm, and provocation. What distinguishes /pol/ is its persistent culture of extreme content: racism, conspiracy theories, antisemitism, trolling provocations, and memes that oscillate between humour and extremist messaging. Scholars have studied /pol/ as both a magnifier and incubator of resentment, extremism, and identity-based cultural politics. 

Yet as of now, there is no definitive evidence that Robinson was immersed in 4chan or /pol/ itself. What is confirmed is that he used Discord, a more mainstream chat and voice platform, and reportedly messaged his roommate shortly after the shooting. The engravings on the bullet shell casings at the scene of the murder reportedly carried messages such as: 

• “Hey fascist! Catch!” with directional arrow symbols (‘up’ arrow symbol, ‘right’ arrow symbol and three ‘down’ arrow symbols that suggest a popular video game keyboard combination command 
• “Bella ciao, Bella ciao, Bella ciao, ciao, ciao!” (a possible reference to the Italian anti-fascist folk song ‘Bella Ciao’
• “Notices bulges OwO what’s this?” (possibly a meme-style/internet culture phrase, ‘OwO’ being an emoticon to express surprise)

Little else is known about Robinson’s political views. One family member reportedly told investigators that over the past year, Robinson had become “more political,” shifting toward the “Left”. He had grown to dislike Kirk’s views, calling them hateful. Still, the Governor of Utah said Robinson had “deeply indoctrinated Leftist ideology,” but has not disclosed his reasoning.

Unsurprisingly, figures in the Donald Trump orbit, including the US President himself, Adviser Stephen Miller, activist Laura Loomer, and various Right-wing media voices, have pushed narratives calling for the shutdown or formal designation of “radical Left-wing groups”. Antifa (short for ‘anti-fascist’) is a primary target in that messaging. 

Impolite society 

This effort appears tied to a broader political strategy: stoking fear, resentment, and hostility toward Left-wing politics. The notion that Robinson was aligned with the Left remains tenuous; to date, there is no firm evidence linking him to communism, socialism, or antifa; no confirmation that he supported Democratic candidates, and no public record of Leftist activism. In fact, sources say Robinson’s family were Republicans and Trump supporters; disclosed text messages and reported statements from students and acquaintances do not portray Robinson as a conventional Left-wing or progressive political actor.

Later reporting indicates Robinson was in a romantic relationship with his roommate, a person believed to be transitioning (from male to female), now reportedly cooperating with investigators. According to prosecutors and news reports, some of the text messages released in the aftermath suggest Robinson believed Kirk’s anti-trans rhetoric constituted “hate” and that this was part of what motivated his action. One headline put it: “Robinson said he killed Kirk because he ‘spreads too much hate.’”

At the time of writing, some commentators have questioned the authenticity of the text messages attributed to Tyler Robinson and expressed doubts about aspects of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) official account. The bureau has also faced accusations of politicisation and a lack of professionalism, mostly stemming from the appointments of YouTube media figures Kash Patel and Dan Bongino, neither of whom has experience in federal law enforcement or investigative work. Despite text messages or the relationship with his roommate, framing the shooting as a simple case of ‘Left versus Right’ political violence remains reductive and unsupported by the evidence currently available.

Millions of teenagers in radical online subcultures like /pol/ use these forums to say what polite society forbids: about women, minorities, politicians, or the dominant culture at large. Within this milieu, a significant contingent gravitates toward the neo-Nazi, white nationalist, and conspiracist ecosystem amplified by figures such as Alex Jones and Nick Fuentes. Fuentes, an avowed white nationalist, was even part of a group invited to dine at the White House with the President, a reminder that what is often described as ‘fringe’ no longer sits entirely at the margins.

‘They hate us’

Fuentes leads a movement of online activists and trolls known as the Groypers; initial online speculation claimed that Kirk was actually murdered by this faction. The motivation was a perceived betrayal; Fuentes and his followers believe Kirk’s discourse had become radically moderated, shifting away from their more extreme positions. Indeed, the feud is well documented: as early as 2019, Groypers disrupted Turning Point USA (TPUSA) events and confronted Kirk, labelling him a “gatekeeper” of establishment conservatism and accusing him of failing to hold a hardline ‘America First’ agenda.  

Meanwhile, this youth-driven subculture has been a notable component of MAGA’s online ecosystem. Many young men and teenagers sympathetic to the Groypers, Alt-Right, or broader Right-wing media likely voted in large numbers for Trump. Their presence within the ‘bro-sphere’ – a band of influencers drawing on fitness, masculinity, memes, conspiracy, gaming, and anti-mainstream culture – helped transplant fringe ideas into more visible Right-wing populism. 

A distinct, influential strain within Right-wing politics is the libertarian faction that aligns with Trump. Figures such as Senator Rand Paul and other libertarians in Congress have publicly opposed some of Trump’s trade and spending positions. Their resistance has occasionally clashed with Trump’s agenda, most notably over the One Big Beautiful Bill, which many libertarian-aligned commentators and politicians criticised as fiscally irresponsible.   

While the Trump administration often invoked libertarian rhetoric, its record of ballooning deficits makes that ethos questionable. Yet the role of libertarianism in shaping Right-wing populism is under-appreciated. Austrian School economist and libertarian theorist Murray Rothbard is credited with popularising the phrase ‘Right-wing populism’ in the early 1990s. His 1992 essay, ‘Right-Wing Populism: A Strategy for the Paleo Movement,’ was a manifesto for the merger of libertarianism with paleoconservatism, a distinctly American strain of conservatism. 

Within the conservative tradition, paleoconservatism emphasises nationalism, Christian moral frameworks, protectionism, and foreign policy restraint (often described as isolationism). It is sometimes cast as the successor to the ‘Old Right,’ the pre-World War II current that opposed the New Deal and US entry into global conflicts. The Old Right’s blend of classical liberal economics, scepticism of big government, and hostility to foreign entanglements carried into paleoconservatism, though some elements shifted. For example, while parts of the Old Right were openly anti-Zionist, that stance did not carry through as centrally into the paleoconservative mainstream of the 1990s.

Rothbard argued that a “paleolibertarian” synthesis should embrace anti-establishment sentiment and channel middle and working-class resentment against elites, particularly over taxation, bureaucracy, and what he viewed as the collusion of state power with entrenched interests. He promoted “Right-wing populism” as a rhetorical and strategic tool to mobilise mass opposition to the managerial state and to Left-liberal cultural dominance. 

This intellectual lineage helps explain the trajectory of figures like Charlie Kirk. His brand of campus conservatism, framing himself as a populist warrior against liberal elites, echoes Rothbard’s call for libertarian-conservative movements to meet Left-liberal cultural power ‘head-on.’ As stated, Kirk has diverged from the Fuentes/Groyper wing by rejecting their anti-Zionist discourse, a reminder of how paleoconservative and libertarian currents have evolved since the Old Right.

Products of the same currents

In an influential 1970s study, American sociologist Donald Warren identified a segment of the white middle and working-class who felt “squeezed” between elites above them and the poor (often racial minorities) below. He called them Middle American Radicals (MARs): voters distrustful of government and elites, resentful of welfare and affirmative action, and committed to “law and order,” patriotism, and national security. 

Economically insecure and alienated from the American Dream, they embodied a white working-class backlash against the New Deal, the Great Society, the civil rights movement, and the rise of multicultural politics. While not always explicitly racist, MAR attitudes were racially coded; opposition to integration, busing, welfare, and immigration was central to their mobilisation. 

Rothbard, alongside allies like Lew Rockwell, recognised the power of this discontent. His ‘paleolibertarian’ turn in the early 1990s sought to ally libertarianism with MARs, marrying anti-government rhetoric against taxes, regulation, and bureaucracy, with cultural nationalism and calls to restrict immigration and preserve the white character of American society. This strategy explicitly courted white resentment and remains a controversial part of Rothbard’s legacy. 

The ideological heirs of Rothbard’s project are visible in Trump’s movement today. The new incarnation of MARs, white, non-college-educated, middle and working-class voters, became the energised base of Trumpism, and were central as well to the rise of figures like Kirk. Since 2016, Trump has channelled their economic anxieties and cultural resentments into a populist revolt against elites and immigrants, portraying “real Americans” as losing their country to globalism, liberalism, and demographic change. 

Turning Point USA fuses Trumpian themes with culture-war activism alongside appeals to Christian nationalism and ‘traditional values.’ Unlike libertarians, Kirk’s emphasis was less on economics than on cultural nationalism. The strategy, however, was similar to earlier Right-wing populist models: take a disaffected, radical base and mould it into a mass movement. TPUSA became one of the best-funded and fastest-growing youth organisations in American politics, with a vast media footprint, real influence over policy debates, and direct access to the Trump White House.

By contrast, Tyler Robinson represents a very different but equally disaffected segment of American youth. Raised not in poverty but in relative middle-class stability, reports suggest he experienced social isolation, limited aspirations, and detachment from mainstream pathways; the bullet-casing bearing the computer gaming command suggests familiarity with online gamer culture. 

In such worlds, the metaphor of the Non-Player Character (NPC), a background figure with no agency, has become shorthand online for alienation. Robinson may have seen himself as trapped in that role, excluded from opportunity, powerless within a system that felt closed-off to him. His act of targeting a high-profile ‘main character’ of American politics suggests a distorted attempt to impose meaning on his own marginality.

Both Kirk and Robinson can be read as products of the same economic and cultural currents that Warren identified in the 1970s as MAR: resentment of elites, anxiety about cultural change, disillusionment with the American Dream. Kirk harnessed that resentment, building celebrity and political power within the Trump movement. Robinson, facing similar undercurrents of alienation but without the means to ‘ride the wave,’ turned nihilistic and destructive. It’s likely that, for Robinson, like millions of kids around the country, the so-called American Dream is largely a relic that his grandparent’s generation would talk about, as if it was real and tangible.

(The writer is a political commentator, media presenter, and foreign affairs analyst. He serves as Adviser on Political Economy to the Leader of the Opposition and is a member of the Working Committee of the Samagi Jana Balawegaya [SJB]. A former banker, he spent 11 years in the industry in Colombo and Dubai, including nine years in corporate finance at DFCC Bank, where he worked closely with some of Sri Lanka’s largest corporates on project finance, trade facilities, and working capital. He holds a Master’s in International Relations from the University of Colombo and a Bachelor’s in Accounting and Finance from the University of Kent [UK]. He can be contacted via email: kusumw@gmail.com and X: @kusumw)

(The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the official position of this publication)